Addendum
by faithish
Summary: What happens to the characters of Delirium following the events of Requiem? How will Lena, Hana, Alex, Julian, and the others pick up the threads of their lives in Portland? This will be a multi-chapter story.
1. Chapter 1

I lie awake on my back, listening to the sounds of the world coming alive around me.

The light creeping in around the edges of the tent flaps glows the warm fiery amber of early morning. From somewhere high above, a jay cries shrilly from its perch, and a rustling of leaves on the ground signals a squirrel or chipmunk foraging for breakfast.

Grace stirs beside me, and I'm aware of the warmth of her small body curled up against mine. I look over at her tightly curled form, chest rising and falling gently, eyelids fluttering in her sleep, and I wonder what she's dreaming about. Her thumb is gripped loosely between her lips, a habit she's far too old for. I turn my gaze back to the ceiling of the tent, weathered and streaked with dirt, pinpricks of light glowing through small holes in the fabric.

_Too old,_ I think, _and too young. Too young for this._

It's been two weeks since the walls around Portland came down and the uncureds swarmed in. Most of the regulators, lacking any formal leadership following the explosion at Fred Hargrove's house, fled north. The few who remained were quickly overcome, and those who were not killed were thrown in the Crypts. Pippa and most of the population living in the Honeycomb quickly moved into the city, eager for real roofs over their heads, running water, and electricity. After seeing the filth and poverty they lived in at the Waterbury camp, I can't say I blame them, but those in our tight-knit group have remained behind at the fringes of town. For some, I think it's a matter of having grown accustomed to our way of life in the Wilds, so that even if it's more primitive, it's comfortable. For me, the hesitation is of a different sort. I'm afraid to walk into the city I grew up in and not recognize it. I worry about bedding down in an abandoned house and being haunted by the ghost of what happened there. Mostly, I'm afraid of coming home and never truly feeling _home._ I have no idea where home is anymore.

Feeling suddenly claustrophobic, I sit up slowly, careful not to disturb Grace, and slip out of my sleeping bag. I peel the zipper of the flap up and slip out into the morning. The remains of last evening's campfire have long since stopped smoldering, leaving behind a black pile of ash and a smell of smoke. A few empty beer cans litter the ground around it, and I frown, thinking of Tack.

Raven's sudden death dealt a blow to all of us. She was the heart of our little band of resisters, and we all felt a little lost without her. But it was no secret that no one felt her absence more keenly than Tack. By day, he disappeared for hours at a time, coming back from the city with food and supplies, and busied himself with stocking it into a small shed he'd constructed from the remains of the wall. At night, he sat around the fire with the rest of us, a can or flask always clutched in his fist, speaking little. He never mentioned her, and the rest of us knew better than to mention her name when he was around. He stoked the flames long after everyone else went to sleep, and I'd often wake in the early hours of the morning and steal a glance outside the tent to see him staring wordlessly into the fire, sipping from a can or bottle as the shadows danced across his face, his jaw set in an unreadable mask. Once, just once, I'd seen him fling a glass bottle into the trees, choke back an angry cry, and hang his head in his hands.

Now, the ring of impromptu seats we've scrounged up using sofa cushions and the occasional lawn chair sits empty, and the only sound of human activity is a soft snore that comes from one tent, a rustle of movement from another as someone turns over in their sleep. Feeling the silent protest from my aching muscles, I decide on a walk down to the creek to get the blood flowing into my limbs and fresh, smokeless air into my lungs.

I pick my way deliberately down the gently sloping hillside, careful to avoid the stones and roots that jut up from the earth. I hear the sound of dribbling water, seeming to titter and laugh as it carves its way along the ravine. I pick up speed as I hear it, eager to dip my toes into the water and splash it onto my face. I make the mistake of not watching my step in my haste, and my toe finds a small stone at the bed of the stream camouflaged by fallen leaves. I wince as the pain shoots up my foot, and commence to hopping along on the uninjured leg.

"Frick!" I sputter, and all at once, something amazing happens.

I begin to laugh.

The utter absurdity of the situation, of having survived my way through riots, capture, and gunfire, only to be tripped up by a simple rock, has somehow struck me as funny. The first laugh rips out of me unexpectedly, and it feels so good that I continue on, throwing my head back and crowing to the sky, not caring who can hear. After a while, my sides begin to ache, and I'm gasping for breath. I double over, hands on my knees, trying to recover.

"Having fun?"

I whirl about, stricken with an instant's terror at having been sneaked up on, which eases when I see my mother standing a few feet away, arms folded, a small smile dancing on her lips.

A wave of embarrassment and even irritation rises up in me, and I struggle to suppress it. "I didn't hear you."

"Obviously." Her smile widens as she crosses toward me and kneels to splash the water on her face. She pulls a handkerchief from her pocket and blots her skin dry. "Having trouble sleeping?"

I nod, although with her back to me, she's unable to see it. "I worry about Grace."

"Grace will be fine," she says shortly, rising. "She's still young. Children adjust more easily than we do."

Hearing her acknowledge me as an adult for the first time is strange, and it frightens me to hear. Sometime, in the past year, I've stopped being a child. Now, with Grace fully relying on me, I've become a sort of de facto parent. The thought is somewhat unsettling, and I have to wonder whether it's her or my responsibility to her that I'm more worried about.

As if reading my thoughts, my mother turns to face me. "What about you, Lena? You've been through an awful lot."

I can't tell whether she means the events of recent weeks, or if she's referring to my childhood without her. I can't stop a cold seed of resentment from sprouting in my belly. In some ways, a small, selfish part of me still has trouble forgiving her for leaving. This, the hardship and the heartache, is the life she was trying to spare me from. In the end, it wouldn't have mattered. I'd either be a zombie, attempting to find the sense and order promised by the cure amid the chaos created by the Invalids, or one of the Invalids themselves, attempting to reclaim a life that had been denied them, in many cases proving to be as brutal and savage as the DFA had warned us all about. Even now, there are times when I struggle with being certain of which side I'd rather have been on. There are no victors among us. This is the price of freedom.

"I'm fine," I say.

"I don't think you are, Magdalena," she says softly. "You're the only one among us who hasn't gone into the city, not even for supplies. You can't sleep in a tent forever. Grace –"

"You said it yourself. Grace can adjust." It's a foolish statement, I know it the moment it leaves my lips, but I'm far too stubborn to recant. Instead, I utter an exasperated sigh.

"She deserves more than this, Lena. You can't take care of her all by yourself. It's an unfair situation to both of you. She needs a soft bed to sleep in, a place to feel safe, a yard to play in. She needs to be allowed to be a child. And you need the time and space to sort things out."

She doesn't elaborate further, and she doesn't need to. The remainder of the sentence remains unspoken, but hangs heavily in the air all the same. Alex. Julian. Where either of them stands. I've been studiously avoiding them both, careful not to be alone with either of them. Alex loves me; he told me so the day the wall came down. Julian loves me; he confessed it months ago, against my protests. I love Alex, but it frightens me. He shattered my heart when he turned away from me, and I don't know that I'd be able to survive it if he ever did it again. At the same time, I can't quite bring myself to break Julian's heart, not when I was the one who brought him here to begin with.

A shout rises from the direction of the campsite, shattering the thick silence between us. "Hey! Where's breakfast? I don't think you want to see what happens when I try to cook!" It's Hunter, who hasn't been allowed near a cooking utensil since he fell asleep preparing a pot of beans and wound up with a charred mess at the bottom of the pan that we still haven't been able to get out.

I smile in spite of myself, and the tension eases. I brave a look at my mother's face, and she gives me a knowing wink. "It's your turn."

I nod, happy to be off the subject, and we start up the hill together.


	2. Chapter 2

_For starters, I'd like to thank those of you who've commented and favorited my story. I apologize that it's taken me so long to post a new chapter, but I've had some unforeseen health issues and such come up. I hope to continue the story with more frequent updates. Please continue to offer your reviews and commentary; I greatly appreciate your feedback!_

The others are gathering around the fire as Mom and I crest the rise. I hear the distant chatter of voices before I glimpse Coral playfully threatening to hurl an egg at Hunter, who brandishes a battered cast iron pan in self-defense. Grace sits quietly at the periphery of the circle made by our tents, sketching lines in the sand with a twig. Coral spots me as she crests the rise, raises her hand in greeting, and smiles.

Looking at her now, I feel a stab of guilt that I was ever hostile toward her. We've worked side by side these last few weeks, and with the absence of Alex as a source of tension between us, at some point I stopped seeing her as my enemy. She is unfailingly cheerful to the lot of us, even given our less-than-ideal circumstances, and she's attentive and patient with Grace, for which I am tremendously grateful.

"Give it over, Hunter," she says as we approach. "Tack's not a pleasant person to be around when he's hungry, and unless I get started now, breakfast won't be ready before he gets here.

"You scrambled the eggs too hard last time," Hunter protests, holding the pan over his head and out of reach as Coral jumps for it. In his efforts to foil her, however, he's failed to notice me striding up behind him, and I seize the opportunity to lunge for his arm and wrest the pan from his grasp.

"Hey!" he gripes as I relinquish the skillet to Coral, who flashes me a grateful smirk before turning away to the task at hand.

"I'm hungry, too, you know," I say, kneeling by the pit to set about reviving the fire.

The sun has drifted higher now, dappling our campsite with a kaleidoscope of light and shadow. As I pass into the clearing from under the shelter of the trees, it warms my skin, chasing away a chill I never knew was there. From the corner of my view, I spot Tack emerging from the trees on the opposite end of the camp, a bundle of kindling in his arms. He trudges toward me, head down, and dumps the load at his feet.

"You should hurry," he says without inflection. "I need to catch up with the others."

"Others?" I ask, and it's only then that I realize that Alex and Julian are conspicuously absent.

"I sent them ahead." He turns and ducks into his tent, and there is the telltale sound of zippers and buckles indicating an impending departure.

I busy myself arranging the kindling, trying not to wonder where they are now, whether the tension between them has boiled over now that they're alone. It takes me three attempts to get it lit, and I find myself utterly annoyed to notice that my hands are trembling. Finally, the spark catches and exhales a breath of black smoke, and I back gratefully away. Coral steps eagerly into my place, cracking eggs and laying out strips of jerky to be warmed. I sink into a chair and Grace skips over to seat herself cross-legged in front of me, assuming the position she has for days on end. I, in turn, reach for her hair and comb my fingers through it, sectioning and weaving it into braids. This is our ritual. This is our morning.

We sit in our circle and eat amiably, a bit of idle chitchat passing between Coral, Hunter, and my mother. Grace picks at her plate and loses interest in her meal early, darting off to chase after a butterfly. Only Tack and I remain silent, and I stare over the makeshift stove at him, but he keeps his gaze downward, refusing to acknowledge me. When his plate is emptied he wipes his lips and rises, reaching for his pack.

"I'm headed out," he announces. "I'll be back in a few days or so."

Coral's head snaps up, distracted from her conversation with Hunter. "Where are you going?"

"To the Crypts," he says, as casually as though he were noting the time of day.

At this, all heads snap up, and Hunter asks the question on everyone's lips. "What for?"

He settles the pack onto his back, squaring his shoulders. "The city is ours now, to regrow and rebuild. We need some answers from the Regulators."

"Where are Alex and Julian?" My mother asks, and I'm grateful I didn't have to be the one to say it.

"I need them with me," he says simply. "I need all the men I can get."

The statement hangs in the air, and no one dares look at Hunter. The awkward silence lingers until it grows stale, and Tack is, at long last, the one who breaks it.

"One of us will be back in a few days, or we'll send word."

No one responds, and I can't help but ask as he starts up the path that leads into the city.

"The Regulators. What makes you so sure they'll give you the answers you're looking for?"

He hesitates only a moment, and doesn't turn to face us. It might be my imagination, but I think I hear the brief crack in his voice, the reminder of what he's lost amid his steely resolve.

"They will if they value their lives."


	3. Chapter 3

_**Hana**_

I walk.

The world around me is on fire. The house I left behind, the one I would have shared with Fred as the mayor's wife, burns. The houses on the street that were once home to the most privileged, influential people in Portland, which were once so lively and bustling with activity, now stand silent like mourners at a funeral, as if afraid to be the first to speak. The crows that roost in the swaying boughs of the maple trees caw to the skies and flutter the black shrouds of their wings in defiant buffet against the wind.

And I walk.

The shoes I would have worn to my wedding scuff loudly in the stillness of the afternoon, the satin stained with mud and soot. My carpeted aisle is the cracked concrete of the sidewalk, and I have long since stopped caring about the tattered hem of my dress that drags along the ground, its lace barely hanging on as it trails sadly behind like the drooping standard of a defeated army.

And I walk.

I lose track of the days as I wander about the city, trying to make sense of what has happened. I feel a sense of obligation, absurd as it may seem, toward the people who live here. While it never happened, I was within reach of becoming their first lady of sorts, and it's hard to dispel the sense of obligation that took months to build, which was shattered in an instant.

I skirt crowds of refugees who clambered in after the walls fell, their faces dirty, their hair matted, their clothing soiled. They gather in small groups around hastily built bonfires, they dine on buffets of torn-open cans scavenged from nearby houses, they doze in the shade of abandoned cars. They are filthy, homeless, desperate.

And yet, something amazing happens.

They laugh. They tell stories. They smile and embrace each other, both for camaraderie and for warmth.

And still, I walk.

I don't have the courage to approach them. I don't know what I'd say if I did.

_I'm Hana. Hana Tate. Very nearly Hana Hargrove. I was about to marry Fred Hargrove, and he would have straightened this city out, he would have put an end to the Incidents and shut out the Invalids. He would have beat down your husbands, your wives, your children. He would have you arrested, beaten, thrown in the Crypts. He would have earned your fear, your hatred, and perhaps eventually your loyalty. But never your respect._ _And all the while I would have stood beside him and behind him, practicing my elegant wave and my perfect smile, creating a layer of elegance between the ruthless and the hopeless, to mitigate the suffering and the unrest. I was all that stood between you and him, and truth be told, had it ever come down to it, I would have stepped aside and watched you tear him down._

But I can't say that. I can't tell them that I was like them once, that I would have thrown out everything I was raised to believe in for the rush of adrenaline I felt whenever I looked at the man I thought I loved, the one who gave me the _deliria._ I can't say that ultimately, I decided it was far better to bet on being safe than on being happy, that I took the easy way out, that in the end, I was a coward. After all they've seen, all they've sacrificed, all they've lost, how could I possibly say that?

So I don't. I drift quietly in their midst, never quite breaching their invisible borders, never attempting to enter their ranks. I hear them chatter amongst themselves and I find I miss talking to another person, I miss the physical contact I've been denied for so long as I awaited my cure. I'd give anything for a hug, a hand to grasp mine, even the accidental brushing of arms between strangers as they pass on the street. They live in the filth and squalor I could have easily avoided had I only kept my head down and my mouth shut, and somehow I envy them the one thing they have that I haven't felt in a very long time: hope.

I've lost my way somehow, and the city I've spent my entire life in has become a stranger to me. And the only people around me could never understand the pain of a girl who once held the world in the palm of her hand at the cost of all they held dear and at one time would have obliterated them if she'd had the chance.

And so I walk.


End file.
